John Eaton

John Eaton (18 June 1790-17 November 1856) was a US Senator from Tennessee from 5 September 1818 to 9 March 1829 (succeeding George W. Campbell and preceding Felix Grundy), Secretary of War from 9 March 1829 to 18 June 1831 (succeeding Peter Buell Porter and preceding Lewis Cass), and Governor of the Florida Territory from 24 April 1834 to 16 March 1836 (succeeding William Pope Duval and preceding Richard K. Call). He was a Democratic-Republican, a Democrat, and a Whig.

Biography
John Eaton was born in Scotland Neck, North Carolina in 1790, and he became a lawyer in Tennessee. He became a part of a network that supported the political campaigns of Andrew Jackson, and he served under Jackson in all of his campaigns and battles during the War of 1812, including the Battle of New Orleans. He then served in the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1815 to 1816, and he served in the US Senate from 1818 to 1829 as a Democratic-Republican. In 1828, he joined Jackson's cabinet as Secretary of War, but Washington DC's society wives refused to socialize with Eaton and his wife due to his wife's remarriage to Eaton during what was traditionally a woman's mourning period following the death of her husband. Eaton resigned to resolve the controversy, and he later served as Governor of the Florida Territory and ambassador to Spain. He returned to the United States in 1840, and he angered Jackson by refusing to endorse Martin Van Buren for the presidency, becoming an American Whig Party supporter. He died in Washington in 1856.